KVR Audio

meeks · Post by **meeks** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:01 am

Whats up with the leaglity for sampling older gear such as:

a) a juno 106...thier original presets
b) a juno 106...your creations

as well as (more importantly):

c) a roland D-50
d) a roland D-50 expansion cards 1-4

I was thinking about getting them up and about for Kontakt/Wusik. This would be my first attempt at something like this but I'm willling to give it a shot.

If there is any advice as to how to go about it in an effective way (other than sampling and painstakingly placing them); please let me know.

Thanks all!

griels · Post by **griels** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:07 am

a) and b) should be fine. c) and d) could be iffy in theory.

TechnoWeeniePas · Post by **TechnoWeeniePas** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:07 am

The D-50 is already avalable (at least the raw wafeforms used to make the patches) in Wusiks big package or as an add-on (Retro DS). As far as I understand it you can not sample the factory patches. Those are copywrited by Roland...the same would go for the cards.

meeks · Post by **meeks** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:09 am

I knew the bgi package had some. But then, how can the big package do that then?

TechnoWeeniePas · Post by **TechnoWeeniePas** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:14 am

They dont use the name "Roland" so it gets overlooked. As far as I understand it its quasi-legal to do. Its an old enough synth and enough attention is not drawn to what the package contains. By making a patch with no modulation and sampling the raw waveform its basicaly sampling your own patch. But thats only kinda right. I dont know if that has ever been battled in court or not whether that is a legal out or not.

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:23 am

The coolest thing in years is SampleRobot from Skylife. It's pricey but it's great.

http://www.samplerobot.de/english/index.php

meeks · Post by **meeks** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:48 am

*edit*

hmmm. I see some problems with there new stnth havign a D-50 built in.

Failed Muso · Post by **Failed Muso** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:02 am

My rule of thumb is that if it's no longer produced in any form by the original company, it's usually ok to go ahead and sample it. Don't go splashing the logo all over it as this can infer it is official or authorised and then some companies might take umbrage with that.

For example, you could sample the hell out of a Sequential Circuits Pro One. Because it hasn't been produced for many years, you are hardly affecting potential sales, and the synth had no presets so the sounds are your own creations.

But if you sampled, say, a Korg M1, you'd be skating on thin ice, especially as the Legacy version is out there currently in the Legacy DE.

Most of the big manufacturers are pretty cool about this kind of thing as long as you are not infringing on current products, but the real problem with what you have chosen is the fact it is Roland.

Roland are extremely litigous, especially the US division (no surprises there !). Regardless of whether the samples are from a currently produced instrument or not, they will issue cease & desists quite freely.

At the end of the day, if you sampled the stuff and didn't refer to Roland or Juno or D50 (which are all copyrighted Trade Marks) you should be ok, but be warned

TechnoWeeniePas · Post by **TechnoWeeniePas** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:16 am

Another one to make sure to stay clear of is EMU. They still market the sounds from the old Ensoniq and old EMU stuff in their sample cd sets. So if you pull samples form their hardware they like to put up a fight as well. I would love to see EMU and Roland go at it for sampling eachother some day

Failed Muso · Post by **Failed Muso** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:43 am

TechnoWeeniePas wrote:Another one to make sure to stay clear of is EMU. They still market the sounds from the old Ensoniq and old EMU stuff in their sample cd sets. So if you pull samples form their hardware they like to put up a fight as well. I would love to see EMU and Roland go at it for sampling eachother some day

Thing is, they're all as bad as each other

All the major instrument manufacturers use each others synths to produce new stuff for themselves. It's common practice.

I can think of a particular instance of EMU marketing a particular sample on one of their samplers and passing it off as their own when in actual fact it had been created on an Akai S1000.

Subsequently, when that sample became very popular due to certain recordings, it was EMU that got the kudos and extra sales, not Akai

Art is based on plagiarism.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

digitalmessiah · Post by **digitalmessiah** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:06 am

Lovesign wrote:
Thing is, they're all as bad as each other All the major instrument manufacturers use each others synths to produce new stuff for themselves. It's common practice.

I can think of a particular instance of EMU marketing a particular sample on one of their samplers and passing it off as their own when in actual fact it had been created on an Akai S1000.

Subsequently, when that sample became very popular due to certain recordings, it was EMU that got the kudos and extra sales, not Akai

Art is based on plagiarism.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

i've always wondered where the big synth manufactures get there waveform/pcm/samples from. i mean, do they plant raw seeds in their backyard, grow them and harvest new sounds?

i think not.

it has to come somewhere. not everyday you discover a new raw wave or new samples and inject that to your new synth

and whenever they release a new synth, they always advertise that "it has a new 64mb piano sound" or "new waveforms" or "patches you've never imagined before" or "a product of 5 years of intensive research".

wtf?

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:22 pm

This sample robot is much better in price:
http://www.cdxtract.com/samplit.php

Just build your own libraries from the presets in the hardware you have got.

bitfreak8 · Post by **bitfreak8** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:06 pm

I don't think there's any problem recording (or releasing recordings) of musical instrument. They are meant for that i think

Failed Muso · Post by **Failed Muso** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:14 pm

bitfreak8 wrote:I don't think there's any problem recording (or releasing recordings) of musical instrument. They are meant for that i think

There is a problem with recording samples from sampled based instruments and releasing the results as your own work.

There isn't a problem creating new sounds with any synth and sampling them for release as your own work.

But you will find that manufacturers probably have the law on their side if they decide you have overstepped the mark.

I'm not saying the law is right, but merely which side it will favour.

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:45 am

digitalmessiah wrote:i've always wondered where the big synth manufactures get there waveform/pcm/samples from.

They record them themselves often at great expense!

They will hire an orchestra (for example) and 'classical' recording engineers and sample each instrument individually and 'ensemble'. They will record much more than they need.

Likewise they hire guitarists, bassists, percussionists, whatever.

Then the sound design teams will sit down and edit, loop and otherwise optimise the samples, choosing the best ones to squeeze them into ROM. It's a long and painstaking process that can take several years to get just right.

It's also very expensive (as you can imagine) which is why some manufacturers can get tetchy when someone comes along and rips it all off!

TechnoWeeniePas wrote:By making a patch with no modulation and sampling the raw waveform its basicaly sampling your own patch. But thats only kinda right.

Eh?? That's about the worst thing you can do!!! By sampling the raw waveforms, you are basically taking their 'raw' recordings for further manipulation much like the synth they intended those samples for. Sampling a complete sound/patch is at least limited with what you can do with afterwards.

And think about it for a moment - they have hired and recorded all these different instruments, spent ages (months.... years) editing and perfecting them and then someone comes along and lifts the lot for nothing!

TechnoWeeniePas wrote:I dont know if that has ever been battled in court or not whether that is a legal out or not.

It has been battled out in court and the manufacturer won! Someone (I forget who) sampled the raw waveforms from a Roland MT32 and used them to make their own software GM product. Roland trounced them big time.... and rightly so!

You can go someway to avoiding the situation by:

* only sampling products that are no longer made

* only sampling your sounds you made yourself

* augmenting those samples by adding elements from other synths (i.e. layering something else on top)

* not mentioning the product name/number or manufacturer in your publicity

All these restrictions might seem petty and unfair and in breach of one's 'creative rights' but look at it from their point of view - tens (even hundreds) of $$$ and maybe years of investment!

Of course, this only applies if you are considering 'releasing' your sounds - if they are only for 'private' use (and that includes using them on a commercially released music album), there's no problem. It's only when you try to make those individual samples available either for free or commercially that you risk some trouble. You might get away with it....

Or you might not!!

The least you will receive is a 'cease and desist' order from the manufacturer's attorneys (but even that is a clear indication of their long-term intentions should you not comply). At the other extreme, you might be faced with a long, protracted and expensive court case and, like it or not, right or wrong, unless you have an exceptionally strong case, the legal system will almost certainly come down in favour of the copyright holder - i.e. not you!!!

I am not joking when I say that the major manufacturers all have teams of people scouring round for potential copyright contravention - they take it very seriously!

Steve

Sampling older gear